A Bit of Takeout
by Aedammair
Summary: When a strange culture gives you a dress and invites you to a welcoming feast, do yourself a favor and run the other way.


No way in Hell is Doctor Who mine. I'm nowhere near that lucky. :)

* * *

She's not one hundred percent sure, but Donna Noble thinks the Doctor may be ogling her cleavage in a very non-scientific way. So just to be better safe than sorry, she smacks his arm for good measure .

'Ow!' he says, rubbing the bruise, 'what was that for?'

'My face,' she says testily, 'is up here.' She points at herself for added effect.

He frowns, still rubbing the spot on his arm where she smacked him. _Skin and bones, that one_, she thinks and not for the first time she wonders how he's managed all these years.

'I was assessing the situation,' he says. 'I was staring off into space, my mind a million miles away.'

'Right,' she says, not at all convinced of his innocence. 'Well your eyes were boring holes into my feminine wiles.'

He considers her and her feminine wiles for a moment – and only a moment, as she's got her hand raised to smack him again – before deciding that there is no safe way out of the hole he's dug for himself. So instead he does the next best thing.

He changes the subject.

'What I don't understand,' he says, index finger taping idly against his pointy chin, 'is why they gave you that dress in the first place.'

She looks down at said dress and shrugs. The elder Santori had said something about customs and a welcoming feast and since she hadn't eaten since that kiosk on the Gravlax planet six hours earlier she did as she was told and put the dress on because it meant she'd be able to get her hands on some food. Maybe a small part of her wondered why she needed to wear a dress to dinner, but that part was overruled by her stomach.

'What does it matter?' she asks.

He cocks his head to the side, thinking. 'Maybe it doesn't,' he says and she's about to ask if they should may their way downstairs to the feast when his thoughts catch up with him. 'Donna, doesn't it seem a little odd to you that you're wearing a white dress?'

'Oi! Do I make comments about your gallivanting about?'

It takes him a second or two to catch up, but when he does she wishes she had a camera for the look on his face. 'Not what I meant!' he says and she has to fight a smile. 'I meant that there wasn't anything wrong with your clothes, so why give you the white dress?'

'Maybe they're a sophisticated culture that dresses for dinner,' she suggests.

'A sophisticated culture that lives in a castle and carries broadswords?' he asks.

She thinks it over. 'You may have a point, spaceman.'

'Right.' He takes her hand. 'We're not staying for dinner,' he says and begins pulling her towards the door of the room they've been given for the evening.

'Why not?' she asks, pulling in the opposite direction. 'I'm absolutely starving.'

He tightens his grip on her hand as he opens the door and pokes his head out into the hallway. Empty.

'We're not staying because something tells me _you're_ dinner and while you do, in fact, look good enough to eat in that dress I'd rather not _actually _eat you.'

She stares at the back of his head, processing what he's just said. When he slowly turns around to look at her, he's blinking owlishly behind those big black spectacles and his lips are puckered like a dying fish.

'You and I are going to address that comment,' she says, gathering up her skirts. 'But at a later date when we're not on the run and I'm not wearing the alien equivalent of a takeout container.'

He nods and she squeezes his hand and then they're off, running through corridors and down stairwells until they're out of the castle and tearing through the surrounding countryside. She lets go of his hand so she can keep her balance but he keeps her in sight. He knows exactly where he's parked the TARDIS and as they near the clearing, that glorious ship is waiting for them, door open and inviting. Donna is keeping perfect pace, much to his pleasant surprise, and her red hair trails behind her, unnaturally bright in the twilight of the planet. He catches her eye and grins, reaching for her hand again as they near the ship. There are angry villagers hollering off in the distance and it'll be only moments before they reach the edge of the clearing where the blue police box sits waiting.

They literally fall into the waiting arms of the TARDIS and he leaves Donna in a heap on the floor so he can rescue them once more from certain death. He plugs random numbers into the console and hits the button and they disappear into time and space.

'Gorgeous,' he says and while he truthfully means their escape, he also subconsciously means the red head laughing on the floor, her hair spilled out around her head in a halo of fire.

'I can't believe they were going to eat me,' she says and a new round of giggles overtakes her. 'As though I'd taste good.'

'I imagine you'd taste like biscuits and honey,' he says absentmindedly and with a dreamy grin. Her laughter dies off suddenly and he realizes a beat too late that he said that last bit out loud.

'Just how much time have you spent thinking about what I'd taste like?' she asks, rolling onto her stomach and regarding him with her chin propped up in her hands. It provides him with an expansive view of milky white skin.

He clears his throat and points over his shoulder. 'I've got to, um, check out the…the crankshaft.' He backs up towards the hallway behind him. 'Been a bit dodgy lately.'

'The crankshaft,' she says and he nods. 'Can't have a dodgy crankshaft.'

'Right, so I'll see you in awhile.'

She can't help but laugh when he runs – literally runs – down the corridor and disappears into the bowels of the TARDIS. She makes a mental note to store the dress away, just in case.


End file.
